We would like to congratulate the 2012 Schoolyard Habitat Grant Award winners:

Mackintosh Academy

Greenwood K-8

Custer County Middle School

Pinnacle Charter School

These schools have their students getting hands-on to improve wildlife habitat and their outdoor classroom spaces at their buildings. Great proposals and great projects!

We're working with the Colorado Wildlife Heritage Program to strengthen the Schoolyard Habitat Grant program for 2013 - stay tuned for some exciting changes! In the meantime, you can always find out more about the WILD Colorado Schoolyard Habitat Program.

Get Outdoors Colorado!National Get Outdoors Day is June 9th

Celebrate National Get Outdoors Day on June 9th in a community near you! Visit www.nationalgetoutdoorsday.org or like National Get Outdoors Day on Facebook for information about events across Colorado and the United States.

In the Denver Area, the Get Outdoors Colorado team is inviting 10,000 of our closest friends(including you!) to Denver City Park between 10am-3:30pm to experience the outdoors. More than 70 organizations will be there to guide you through (free) outdoor adventures - boating, fishing, biking, junior ranger camp, skiing simulator, entertainment, food vendors and many more fun, hands-on experiences.

Webinars begin at 2 pm EST and last approximately 60-90 minutes depending on the topic. All webinars will be recorded and available for later viewing (on AFWA's Vimeo channel). To receive notices about upcoming webinars, email lmaclean@fishwildlife.org.

Webinar Schedule:

5/23: K-12 Conservation Scope & SequenceDr. Judy Silverberg from New Hampshire Fish & Game discusses this educator's guide to sequential learning about fish and wildlife in terms of content standards and performance expectations for K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 grade bands in the areas of science, social science, and health and fitness.

6/27: America's Wildlife--Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

7/25: Outdoor Investigations

8/22: Outdoor Skills Education in Schools

9/26: Evaluating Conservation Education Programs

10/24: Landscape Investigations and Project-based Learning

11/28: Connecting Kids with Nature

Bat Education Opportunities

Celebrate the Year of the Bat by learning more about bats!

May 3, 7-8:30 p.m. ET - Bat Education in the Classroom and Field - experts will provide educators with lessons and activities to use in the classroom and in the field. Presenters include: Rob Mies, founder and executive director of the Organization for Bat Conservation, and Dennis Krusac, endangered species specialist with the USDA Forest Service-Region 8.To register, go to http://online.nwf.org/site/Calendar?id=105902&view=Detail

Classrooms can join BatsLIVE on Thursday, May 17, 2012, for a live electronic field trip about bats. The webcast is free to all schools and is geared to students in grades 4 to 8. Classrooms can participate by sending in questions to be answered by experts. There will be a link on the homepage on the day of the event for you to access the webcast. The program will be webcast from 11 a.m. to Noon Mountain Time. http://batslive.pwnet.org/webcast/index.php

Also, save the date for an electronic field trip will be held live on September 18, 2012, at the Bracken Bat Cave near San Antonio, Texas, which is the summer home of the world's largest bat colony. As millions of bats emerge from the cave, watch the live program from 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Mountain Time. http://batslive.pwnet.org/webcast/index.php

October 11- Caves and Karst - webinar to learn about cave and karst topography. Presenters include: Cynthia Sandeno, National Cave and Karst Coordinator for the USDA Forest Service; Carol Zokaites, chief of environmental education for Virginia State Parks and national coordinator of Project Underground; and Dr. Rick Toomey, director of the Mammoth Cave International Center for Science and Learning.

In this in-person workshop, discover the amazing world of bats in this fun, interactive educator workshop. See live bats UP CLOSE and in person, learn about the amazing biology of these critters and the challenges these ecologically important creatures are facing. Take home activity materials and fun bat resources for your classroom, nature center, or home school setting. Registration is $25 and teachers can opt in for Colorado School of Mines re-certification credit for an additional fee.